With this new version, Konversation now depends on KDE 4.3 and Qt 4.5 and also has gotten a few “interface tweaks, new keyboard shortcuts and many bugfixes [to] round things out” according to the announcement on their homepage.

The most exciting new feature Konversation 1.3 brings to the table is called “DCC Whiteboard” which brings “collaborative drawing – think two-player Kolourpaint – to IRC”.

To get an idea how this is implemented and how it looks like, see the screenshot below:

Konversation DCC Whiteboard

But that’s not all – Konversation 1.3 brings back “KDE’s SSL certificate store the KDE 3 version enjoyed” and also expands the support for “auto-away to the Windows and Mac OS X platforms thanks to both recent advances in the KDE 4 platform and new code in Konversation”.

There’s also a roadmap of features to be added/completed until the 1.3 final release which amongst other things also cites “World domination” as one of their goals – i for one welcome my new drawing IRC overlords.

Konversation 1.3-beta1 is currently only available as sourcecode for download here.

[Update]: Konversation 1.3 final was released on 8th June. Changes from -beta1 to the final version include fixes to the build process with KDE 4.3 and a few others.